Advanced non-conventional weaponry has been of increasing importance since Ronald Reagan called for an anti-missile defense system in 1983 and dubbed; “star wars.” Among the potential components of the defense system were both space- and earth-based laser battle stations, which, by a combination of methods, would direct their killing beams toward moving Soviet targets. Critics pointed to the vast technological uncertainties of the system, in addition to its enormous cost. Although work was begun on the program, the technology proved to be too complex and much of the research was cancelled by later administrations. The idea of missile defense system would resurface later as the National Missile Defense.
A directed-energy weapon (DEW) emits focused or collective energy, transferring that energy to a target to damage it. In general, potential applications of DEW technology include anti-personnel weapon systems, potential missile defense system, and the disabling of airplanes, drones, and electronic devices such as mobile phones. The energy can come in various forms: electromagnetic radiation, including radio frequency, microwave, lasers and masers; particles with mass, in particle-beam weapons; and sonic weapons.
Ultra-wideband systems consisting of sources and antennas typically provide a radiated electromagnetic environment with a fairly flat spectral content over 1 to 2 decades (10's of MHz to several GHz). Such systems are finding many military and civilian applications, such as target identification, detection of buried targets such as leaky pipes and humanitarian de-mining, ISAR (Impulse Synthetic Aperture Radar) systems are also being considered for such applications as “seeing through walls”. In providing transient energy to ultra-wideband antennas, many high-power transient sources (100's of kV in amplitude, 50-200 picosecond rise-times) that employ oil or gas spark-gap switches are designed and fabricated with coaxial or single-ended output geometry. In addition, solid-state transient sources are also commercially available with typically 50Ω coaxial cable output. A full reflector type of an impulse radiating antenna (IRA) requires a differential TEM feed to avoid common mode currents on the feed plates, which adversely impact the radiated pulse fidelity. Such systems are known to radiate impulse-like waveforms with rise-times Tr around 100 picoseconds (ps) and peak electric field values of 10's of kV/m.
Typical high power microwave (HPM) weapons are ineffective and unreliable, having electric fields less than 100 kV/m (105 Volts/meter) and GW (109 Watts) power pulses significantly longer than 1 nanosecond (10−9 seconds).
For strategic applications targets such as missiles and satellites the high power microwave weapons rely on coupling energy to internal electronic components whereas high energy laser weapons rely of thermo-mechanical structural damage, primarily external.
The prevailing thought prior to this submission was that considering the constant relationship between energy, power and the E-field, wherein the probability of target damage can only be achieved by increasing a time of application of the electromagnetic field to distant targets. Incorrectly, it has been a generally accepted notion that to burn something we need to increase the time of radiation generation . . . everybody increases the pulse duration to their peril. This has led to huge impractical HPM weapon designs too costly to build, too heavy to ship, too large to fit, and too inefficient to power. It is clear that merely scaling up the radiation time interval or physical sizes is not the answer to increasing the probability of target damage.
The current most advanced weapon, C. Baum, JOLT, has the E-field×R=6×10+6 V (where R is non-diverging beam field-maximum-distance in meters) Baum's JOLT reflector antenna with a diameter of 3.6 m, results in R=86 m and a radiated E-field of 70 kV/m. It should be noted that the E-field* Rλ incorrectly imposes a notion that if this factor is large, one should be able to damage something, while in fact one could have a large diameter and a small E-field and be able to do nothing. This factor was promoted by Baum and his group to show how their reflector radiating only 70 kV/m is superior to everybody else. His and the others' systems could not burn protected equipment anyway as stated in the US Defense Science Board Task Force on Direct Energy Weapons, December 2007, Office of Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, Washington D.C., the effectiveness (of JOLT) as a weapon has not been demonstrated with what can be mildly said, “it cannot burn anything”.
Until now the electromagnetic power addition is done by using single frequency generator that through power splitter supplies low power signals to multiple high power amplifiers and delivers multiple high power beams to a target. This concept is still being used at all frequencies of the entire electromagnetic spectrum including microwave and optical frequencies. The most prominent applications of this concept in the area of electromagnetic fusion are the Tokomak in Europe and the National Ignition Facility (NIF) in the US. The use of single frequency, narrowband concept prevents Tokomak from generating and delivering sufficient power to reach a GV/m electric field in the range of 300 GHz that is corresponding to fusion plasma resonances. The NIF by using 192 collimated optical beams, each carrying power of tens of Watts, achieve GV/m electric field. However, at the optical frequencies the radiated power does not excite the fusion plasma resonances that occur at microwave frequencies. As such, the off-the-band high frequencies electromagnetic interactions does only “burn” the target without engaging the plasma molecular frequencies, making the excitation process energy inefficient.
To alleviate the Tokomak and NIF shortcomings in delivering electric field of required strength and frequency and to address the issue of energy efficiency this submission introduces new time domain power addition method and apparatus. Maximizing electric field, minimizing energy and separately or jointly addressing the molecular and thermal electromagnetic interaction that is addressed in this submission allows reaching GV/m electric fields at fusion plasma microwave resonance frequencies, increasing energy efficiency and the electromagnetic interaction probabilities. Maximizing the electric field to a level of GV/m in the vacuum and MV/m in the air, limited only by the breakdown in the propagation medium, allows using this invention as an ultimate High Power Microwave (HPM) weapon in the frequency range of 1 to 3 GHz and as fusion research facility in the 300 GHz frequency range.
In order to generate a GV/m E-field, required for HPM high energy physics research, power must be added first in the Cassegrain antenna and collimated (without divergence) so that a parallel uniform beam from the Cassegrain antenna can be focused into a single point. Learning from the high energy physics research, a Cassegrain antenna is identified and described herein as a serendipitous ideal weapon device component. However, for the Cassegrain antenna to be used as a component of a weapon it has to have a range of km and not the HPM research distance approximately 15 m. To achieve this range, the diameter of the radiated beam is disclosed herein as a specific range of sizes with a radiated E-field in the range of approximately 3-5 MV/m.
An exemplary research system was built in order to perform MV/m testing including a system of 2 generators with power supplies, 2 trigger generators with power supplies. The 2 trigger generators were triggered from the same trigger source to get synchronization. Each of the two generators was connected directly to an exemplary TEM-horn type antenna or horn. This set up is identical to an array of similar horns, with the horns at a close distance from each other resulting in de-coupling between the horns better than −30 dB. In the measurement setup, each beam was collimated using a spherical mirror and sequentially each beam was focused into a single point. The adjustment of timing was demonstrated in part by moving the position of one antenna in respect to the other. Using an alternative calibration technique the distance of each of the generator in respect to the horn in the array has to be varied using phase shifters including for example, sliding high voltage cables for each beam in order to calibrate the timing of the entire Cassegrain antenna at the target.
It was obvious to the applicant that the TEM-horns as patented previously will not radiate MV/m E-field required by this invention. Simply the wedges needed previously to separate the vertical and horizontal illumination as well as dielectric lenses, low surface breakdown voltage and low dielectric breakdown voltage did not allow increasing the E-field at least 10 times as needed. A new HPM TEM-horn had to be invented in order to allow broadband operation at microwave frequencies (within 1 to 500 GHz range) and at MV/m field level. It is easily verifiable that antennas of the HPM TEM-horn capabilities did not exist till now.
A need has existed for an HPM TEM-horn that permits applying from a single generator voltage of 20 MV without resulting in breakdown. The advancements and improvements herein make this HPM TEM-horn the first and only microwave antenna in the world that presently can operate at power level of 2 TW (2*10+12 W) into a 100 ohm antenna input.